I figured this was as good a time as any to come clean about reasons Democrats are fretting the 2024 election results despite some quite positive signs for Kamala Harris, so I wrote them up at New York:
One of the most enduring of recent political trends is a sharp partisan divergence in confidence about each party’s electoral future. Democrats are forever “fretting” or even “bed-wetting;” they are in “disarray” and pointing fingers at each other over disasters yet to come. Republicans, reflecting the incessant bravado of their three-time presidential nominee, tend to project total, overwhelming victory in every election, future and sometimes even past. When you say, as Donald Trump often does, that “the only way we lose is if they cheat,” you are expressing the belief that you never ever actually lose.
The contrast between the fretting donkey and the trumpeting elephant is sometimes interpreted as a matter of character. Dating back to the early days of the progressive blogosphere, many activists have claimed that Democrats (particularly centrists) simply lack “spine,” or the remorseless willingness put aside doubts or any other compunctions in order to fight for victory in contests large and small. In this Nietzschean view of politics, as determined by sheer will-to-power (rather than the quality of ideas or the impact of real-world conditions), Democrats are forever bringing a knife to a gun fight or a gun to a nuclear war.
Those of us who are offended by this anti-intellectual view of political competition, much less its implicit suggestion that Democrats become as vicious and demagogic as the opposition often is, have an obligation to offer an alternative explanation for this asymmetric warfare of partisan self-confidence. I won’t offer a general theory dating back to past elections, but in 2024, the most important reasons for inordinate Democratic fear are past painful experience and a disproportionate understanding of the stakes of this election.
It’s very safe to say very few Democrats expected Hillary Clinton to lose to Donald Trump in 2016, or that Joe Biden would come so close to losing to Donald Trump in 2020. No lead in the polls looks safe because in previous elections involving Trump, they weren’t.
To be clear, the national polls weren’t far off in 2016; the problem was that sparse public polling of key states didn’t alert Democrats to the possibility Trump might pull an Electoral College inside straight by winning three states that hadn’t gone Republican in many years (since 1984 in Wisconsin, and since 1988 in Michigan and Pennsylvania). 2020 was just a bad year for pollsters. In both cases, it was Trump who benefitted from polling errors. So of course Democrats don’t view any polling lead as safe. Yes, the pollsters claim they’ve compensated for the problems that affect their accuracy in 2016 and 2020, and it’s even possible they over-compensated, meaning that Harris could do better than expected. But the painful memories remain fresh.
If you believe the maximum Trump ‘24 message about Kamala Harris’s intentions as president, it’s a scary prospect: she’s a Marxist (or Communist) who wants to replace white American citizens with the scum of the earth, which her administration is eagerly inviting across open borders with government benefits to illegally vote Democratic. It’s true that polls show a hard kernel — perhaps close to half — of self-identified Republicans believe some version of the Great Replacement Theory that has migrated from the right-wing fringes to the heart of the Trump campaign’s messaging, and that’s terrifying since there’s no evidence whatsoever for it. But best we can tell, the Trump voting base is a more-or-less equally divided coalition of people who actually believe some if not all of what their candidate says about the consequences of defeat, and people who just think Trump offers better economic and tougher immigration policies. While the election may be an existential crisis for Trump himself, since his own personal liberty could depend on the outcome, there’s not much evidence that all-or-nothing attitude is shared beyond the MAGA core of his coalition.
By contrast, Democrats don’t have to exercise a lurid sense of imagination to feel fear about Trump 2.0. They have Trump 1.0 as a precedent, with the added consideration that the disorganization and poor planning that curbed many of the 45th president’s authoritarian tendencies will almost certainly be reduced in 2025. Then there’s the escalation in his extremist rhetoric. In 2016 he promised a Muslim travel ban and a southern border wall. Now he’s talking about mass deportation program for undocumented immigrants and overt ideological vetting of legal immigrants. In 2016 he inveighed against the “deep state” and accused Democrats of actively working against the interests of the country. Now he’s pledging to carry out a virtual suspension of civil service protections and promising to unleash the machinery of law enforcement on his political enemies, including the press. As the furor over Project 2025 suggests, there’s a general sense that the scarier elements in Trump’s circle of advisors are planning to hit the ground running with radical changes in policies and personnel that can’t be reversed.
An important psychological factor feeding Democratic fears of a close election is the unavoidable fact that Trump has virtually promised to repeat or even surpass his 2020 effort to overturn the results if he loses. So anything other than a landslide victory for Harris will be fragile and potentially reversible. This is a deeply demoralizing prospect. It’s one thing to keep people focused on maximum engagement with politics through November 5. It’s another thing altogether to plan for a long frantic slog that won’t be completed until January 20.
Trump has been working hard to perfect the flaws in his 2020 post-election campaign that led to the failed January 6 insurrection, devoting a lot of resources to pre-election litigation and the compilation of post-election fraud allegations.
Though if you look hard you can find scattered examples of Democrats talking about denying a victorious Trump re-inauguration on January 20, none of that chatter is coming from the Democratic Party, the Harris-Walz campaign, or a critical mass of the many, many players who would be necessary to challenge an election defeat. Election denial in 2024 is strictly a Republican show.
As my colleague Jonathan Chait recently explained, the odds of Republicans winning control of the Senate in November are extremely high. That means that barring a political miracle, a President Harris would be constrained both legislatively and administratively, in terms of the vast number of executive-branch and judicial appointments the Senate has the power to confirm, reject, or simply ignore.
If Trump wins, however, he will have a better-than-even chance at a governing trifecta. This would not only open up the floodgates for extremist appointments aimed at remaking the federal government and adding to the Trumpification of the judiciary, but would unlock the budget reconciliation process whereby the trifecta party can make massive policy changes on up-or-down party-line votes without having to worry about a Senate filibuster.
Overall, Democrats have more reason to fear this election, and putting on some fake bravado and braying like MAGA folk won’t change the underlying reasons for that fear. The only thing that can is a second Trump defeat which sticks.
Ed,
thanks for the response. It appears you posted while I was composing. I appreciate the clarification. It looks like we are more in agreement than I thought.
Tom.
Joe, I take your point and I probably missed that nuance in my pique. Thanks for highlighting that.
What irritated me initially is the implication by Reid et al that we out here in the real world need to just shut up and that our attempts to speak out against these kinds of unprincipled power plays by the Blue Dogs is somehow “unfair.” It isn’t unfair at all, nor is it premature. I have every right, as a lifelong contributing Democrat, to criticize members of my political party when I think they deserve it. And I think the Bayhs and the Liebermans deserve criticism when they team up with Republicans to start wars and to scuttle bankruptcy reform and to throw monkey wrenches in budget legislation to save this economy and to advance the Democratic agenda for which they were elected.
Kilgore doesn’t have to use such loaded, inflammatory mischaracterizations to make his point, i.e. “those who want to lump all Democratic “centrists” into the putative-‘traitor’ camp”. His dismissive tone, it seems to me, is a deliberate attempt to marginalize the views of progressives and centrists. By tossing out these loaded terms the points that you suggested he was making get lost in ever more heat and ever less light.
Thanks for all the comments. I guess I’m a bit taken aback by the idea that I’ve willfully offended any progressives. Joe Corso’s right: the whole point of my post was the Bayh crossed a critical line on a huge vote, and needs to stop putting himself forward as representative of “centrists” or much of anybody else in the Democratic Party.
As for the “S word,” “sincere”: hell, I can’t see into the man’s soul, but neither can anybody else; I find it easier to think he’s drunk his own anti-deficit kool-aid than to think he’s made some shrewd, cynical political calculation. As these comments and many others suggest, he’s terribly damaged his own standing in the Democratic Party, and no, I don’t really buy the idea that he’ll get more attention now than he would have gotten as leader of a 16-member Democratic group in the Senate, so long as he voted for the budget resolution.
So if Evan Bayh was as conniving as so many folks clearly think he is, then he’s a really poor conniver.
On one small note: to those who think Bayh’s vote for the higher exclusion and lower rate on estate taxes proves he doesn’t care about deficits, I would point out that this was the default position of virtually all Democrats until the total repeal enacted in 2001 sunsetted (at least those who didn’t support total repeal, and there were a disturbing number of those, BTW). So maybe Bayh is just trying to be consistent on this one thing. It certainly doesn’t make his opposition to the budget resolution look very brave or noble, does it?
In any event, what’s more interesting than how I or anyone else construes Bayh’s motives is the main question I tried to raise in the post: will anyone follow him now? I doubt it.
I think we’re having a problem with the word “sincere” here. the word has positive connotations that seem quite inappropriate in this context.
Does this help — a craven,amoral, money-sucking hyena can be a sincerely craven, money-sucking hyena.
correction – in the second paragraph I meant to say that Bayh was clearly in the “first” category, not the “second”
Tom:
It seems to me that Ed is making a distinction between two notions of “centrism” – as he says “between “centrists” who do want to stand aside from the Democratic Party and cut deals, and those who don’t.”
He is characterizing Bayh’s behavior as clearly in the second category and calling on him to resign in favor of in favor of “senators whose agreement with and loyalty to the Obama agenda is much less in question” if they want to be “anything other than a crude power bloc looking to shake down the administration and the congressional leadership for personal, ideological, and special-interest favors.”
As a labor-progressive Democrat myself, I don’t see any of this as insulting a progressive perspective. There are some moderate Democrats I disagree with on issues but very much want in the Democratic Party. Then there are guys we’d be better off without. I think Ed’s trying to make that distinction and not trying to put down progressives.
Here’s a little item Ed, that maybe you can address with respect to “sincere” Evan Bayh:
Thanks to the efforts of Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and others, a bill allowing bankruptcy judges to cram-down mortgage payments for troubled homeowners hasn’t seen the light of day since it passed the House in early March. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is actually thinking of pulling the cram-down provision from the legislation, since it has met such fierce resistance, fueled by a misinformation campaign based on Mortgage Bankers Association talking points.
This is the kind of stuff, anti-constituent and anti- big D Democratic, that people find objectionable. Please explain to me, during these very, very tough times, that Bayh would play this kind of game. What “sincere”, “principled” objections does he have to amending the draconian bankruptcy bill, which he supported? I’ll look forward to your explanation, because I cannot understand it.
Source:
Wonk Room » Mortgage Modifications Hitting Roadblocks, As Cram-Down Bill Languishes In Senate
That’s quite a stretch, Ed. If Bayh is such a sincere “deficit hawk” then please explain his support of reducing the so-called death tax.
I agree with the gentleman above. You are completely misreading the objections to Bayh from progressives and others. It isn’t a “loyalty test” at all, and it isn’t a matter of being a “traitor.” The man is without discernible principles. The man is anti-constituent.
Bayh’s vote on the budget will provide abundant ammunition to those who want to lump all Democratic “centrists” into the putative-“traitor” camp
You know, Ed, I hope that at some point we can have a discussion without you insider strategists going out of your way to insult us with your glib, willingly obtuse “misunderstanding” of online progressives and centrists and what we are trying to do. I guess you gain some cred with your more right-of-center media buddies when you piss off “the libruls” but at some point that isn’t going to work any more.
Will you try to meet us halfway for a more constructive discussion? That would entail you actually listening and trying to understand what the objections to Bayh’s position is.
Nothing is more irritating to this old-time labor Democrat than for my perfectly reasonable positions to be constantly mischaracterized. It isn’t getting us anywhere that we want to be when you keep doing that.
lump all Democratic “centrists” into the putative-“traitor” camp even though 14 members of the “Bayh group” voted with the rest of the Democratic Caucus
Ed, I think you’re misreading the left blogosphere’s perspective. It is precisely this kind of random, ride-the-fence vacillation, untethered to any identifiable principle or fiscal rationale, that raises hackles.
This, however, sums said perspective up perfectly:
a crude power bloc looking to shake down the administration and the congressional leadership for personal, ideological, and special-interest favors
Add “and get their mugs on television” and you’ve got a post fit for the Great Orange Satan.